Saturday, December 19, 2009

Cycling for the belly, thoughts and food for the mind.

The bicycle is a machine of freedom, a machine of work, a machine of global connectivity, a machine that weaves through all social classes and demographics. This video takes us a step back to remind us of the universal multiple views of this utilitarian tool. ♥Thanks Christa for sharing this link with us all!

Some Cycle as Passion, Some for fun, Some for Sports, Some to Commute & Some because they don't have any other alternative. They need to push it hard empty Stomach & do peddling for there family's Stomach. They are people around us, serving us for different services, directly or indirectly using Cycle. They are never considered as environment friendly even they never burnt a single drop of petrol/ diesel to commute. They are Part of our cycling community. Cycling is Hobby of Rich & Art of Poor. The tough art, they need to perform always, sometime under encroaching sun, heavy rain & chilling cold only on Cycle. Lets meet People for whom Cycling is a Weapon for Struggle of life. -YouTube userpankajsisodiya

8 comments:

Melli,Great blog! I guess there's a huge difference betweenbiking for necessity and biking to be part of the 'cool patrol'. It makes me feel guilty somehow. The people in Copenhagen don't use their bikes thatmuch differently than the people in India. I think theyare both 'chic'.Jon C.

Thanks for posting this! I'm Indian but have never been to India and have therefore wondered what people there think of cycling as opposed to here in The States. And also how much more they do it out of necessity (although we could argue that we do it out of necessity in order to reduce pollution). I'd like to think that at least some of the men in the video enjoy it to some degree...

Also, just a side note, I thought it was nice how they slipped "Khush raho beta" into the subtitles. The video seems to suggest that they do this purely as a means for survival but that quote roughly translates to "Stay happy child".

this piece of food for thought definitely links to some ideas i have for class differences here in the states that i think about often. there are a lot people here who also use a bike out of necessity to get to work, use it for work, but we don't get to hear their side of the story too often. i'm guessing it is because advocacy/fitness/environmental concerns/[fill in the blank] must come secondary to their primary concerns of their family's struggle to survive.

documenting and sharing those struggles also becomes a hindrance if one doesn't have the equipment or the time to document such stories. or if people with access to such avenues do not go and find these stories. fortunately, in this instance, we got to see an example in thanks to pankaj.

john/ thanks! and yes elegance is an absolute state of mind. i'll take personality over chic anyday ;)

-PP/ thanks for your thoughts, Im glad that you can pick on the several aspects of this and the 'stay happy child' is a positive way of viewing things, which weather socially or emotional, is an important attitude to carry on with our lives as citizens of this world. cheers-

calitexican and christa/ great points. our social aspects in the US as well as around the world will continue to change for better or worst and there are two things that will remain constant, people struggling to better up social changes, and people oppressing it. Only time and nature will allow us and push us to have both mentalities merge into one view, and hopefully it wont be too late.

There is a movie Brandon Frasier stared in about 10 years ago about a Jewish kid who pretends to be Christian to go to a better school "School Ties". In the movie, he tells the story of driving past the dump with his father. He sees a couple of men digging through the mountain of trash for usable items and things to sell. He expresses pity and disgust and his father tells him "Those men aren't hurting anyone. They are working hard. That is honorable work."

That certainly applies here. These men work very hard to survive. They are creative and industrious and persistent. They earn respect everyday, even when it isn't shown to him.

They are lucky to be on bicycles. Imagine how much harder it would be if they were not!